We're still not sure about the Aivia branding on Gigabyte's gaming peripherals, but its latest mouse addition, the M8600 wireless macro gaming mouse looks pretty interesting despite a very long and somewhat awkward name. It's Gigabyte's first wireless gaming mouse and one of only a handful wireless gaming mice on the market.

We're still not sure about the Aivia branding on Gigabyte's gaming peripherals, but its latest mouse addition, the M8600 wireless macro gaming mouse looks pretty interesting despite a very long and somewhat awkward name. It's Gigabyte's first wireless gaming mouse and one of only a handful wireless gaming mice on the market.

It's hard not to draw parallels between the M8600 and Logitech's old G7 mouse, especially as the two are using a cartridge based rechargeable battery system. Rather unusually for a wireless mouse, Gigabyte has based its batteries on Li-Ion technology, but even so the battery life in only rated at 50h per battery pack. That said, Gigabyte claims that it takes a mere two seconds to change the battery pack, or “as fast as reloading a gun” according to the product website.

However, unlike the old G7 the M8600 also sports a front USB port, although it appears to only be compatible with the supplied cable judging by its somewhat odd shape. When the cable is connected the mouse switches over to wired mode and works just like any old wired mouse. The upside of this is that you don't have to worry about your batteries running out, wireless interference or any potential lag that there might be in the wireless connection.

Gigabyte has also implemented its “Ghost macro engine” which means you get a whopping 32KB of onboard memory, although this is apparently enough to store no less than five user profiles and 70 macros. The battery charger will not only charge the secondary battery pack, but you can also place the mouse on it when you're not using it and the battery pack inside the mouse will charge. The charger also doubles as the wireless receiver.

The M8600 has a 5600dpi laser sensor that can be adjusted from 100dpi and up. For what it's worth the sensor also supports interpolation up to 6500dpi, although we're not sure how much difference this really makes. The tire treaded scroll wheel sports side way tilting, a feature many gaming mice lack. There's of course also an option to change the colour of the built in LED lights and Gigabyte even provides a free spare set of replacement mouse feet.

We're not sure what the mouse will retail for outside of Taiwan, but we tracked down a retail price of NT$3,490 (S$149) in Taiwan which seems a little bit on the steep side, especially as the Logitech G700 retails for the same price locally. Despite all the features, it's going to be hard for Gigabyte to compete against the more established brands, especially at this price point.